Teen killed by St. Louis police was in wrong place at wrong time, not a criminal: family

By RACHELLE BLIDNER

|NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Aug 20, 2015 | 1:47 PM

The St. Louis teen whose death by police sparked violent protests Wednesday night was supposed to start college next week, his family said.

The St. Louis teen whose death by police sparked violent protests Wednesday night was supposed to start college soon and was a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, his family and friends said.

Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, was shot after police say he tried to run during the execution of a search warrant and pointed a stolen gun with an extended magazine at two cops.

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Officers said they found crack cocaine and stolen guns at the scene in a crime-riddled neighborhood. A teen who was with Ball-Bey escaped.

The distraught family said they could not believe the police account because Ball-Bey, who went by Man Man, was not capable of those crimes: he had just graduated from high school, held a steady job and was heading to college.

Mansur Ball-Bey was fatally shot by police on Wednesday in St. Louis. (Instagram)

"They f---ed up. They shot the wrong person. And they know it," cousin Tyren Cotton-Booker wrote on Facebook, noting Ball-Bey had no criminal background.

Ball-Bey's dad, Dennis, said he believes police made a mistake and is going to consult lawyers to investigate.

"It was a bad loss, but he was a good son. All these people loved him. He wasn't the type to run the streets or be disrespectful to the family," Dennis Ball-Bey told the Daily News.

Ball-Bey's social media accounts show he was an aspiring music producer and rapper who held guns in pictures and music videos with friends. One picture was captioned, "Gang Gang" with the name Trakcistan Mafia, which Ball-Bey had previously referred to as his rap group.

But his dad said Ball-Bey had the guns only to act in music videos, not because he was using them to commit crimes.

"They make rap songs and videos and call it gangsta rap," Dennis Ball-Bey said. "They was making music."

According to family accounts, Ball-Bey stopped by an aunt's house to meet up with his cousins on his way home from his part-time job at FedEx. They were met by police in an unmarked car and Ball-Bey "got caught up in some bs being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Cotton-Booker said.

He was still in his FedEx uniform when he got shot, family said.

"But I'll be damned if I believe that he left work stopping by, not even being there over 5 minutes and pulls a gun out on the police. Naw I'm not believing that one. Not at all!" Cotton-Booker wrote.

Some of his cousins had been in jail before, but his dad wasn't sure how many had or for what.

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"True I have some family that if somebody told me that did something, I could probably believe it, but not him, not at all," cousin Charles N. Angela Hale wrote. "My heart is so heavy right now."

A cousin reportedly witnessed the shooting but did not immediately respond to phone messages.

When asked about the family's claims and whether Ball-Bey was a suspect before the shooting, St. Louis police said the investigation is ongoing and that more information will be released when it's available.

The death of Ball-Bey, who is black, at the hands of white officers prompted about 150 people to gather on the street, chanting "Black Lives Matter" as some protestors threw glass bottles, bricks and smoke bombs, police said. A car and a vacant building were set on fire.

Nine people were arrested for impeding traffic, and one woman also faced charges of resisting arrest, St. Louis police said.

DeAndre Cody, a cousin, said the family just wants "the truth brought to light."

"Man Man was very respectful. We can't imagine him pulling a gun on an officer. He's never conducted himself like that and he was raised better than that," Cody told the Daily News.

"We just want the facts. We don't believe the facts are being told. They won't even tell us where they took his body."

At most, Ball-Bey got up to some youthful hijinx, like staying up all night on prom night and sneaking out of Applebee's to make his friend pay for the meal, said friend @YUNGGTAZZ, who changed his name on Twitter to #MansurBallBey after the shooting. Although he noted Ball-Bey once beat up the friend's ex "for being an a--hole and we had a good laugh about it."

Ball-Bey graduated from McCluer South Berkeley High School in Ferguson in May. While Ball-Bey's Facebook said he studied at Harvard University, Cody said that was not where Ball-Bey was headed. Cody did not specify where he was going. Dennis Ball-Bey said his son never disclosed which school he planned to attend soon.

"The news making him seem like a bad kid, but I promise this baby was a good young man," Hale wrote.